Good morning, New York. We were up early watching Israel play their first-ever Olympic baseball game. The Blue-and-White lost to a favored Republic of Korea team 6-5 in 10 innings. The United States takes on Israel in a group-play matchup tomorrow at 6 a.m. ET on NBCOlympics.com or the NBC Sports app.
TRAGEDY IN UKRAINE
Two yeshiva students from New York were among those killed when their small plane crashed into a house in western Ukraine on Wednesday.
- Amrom Fromowitz of Monsey and Lazer Brill of Willamsburg, along with Hershy Weiss of London and their pilot, died when their sight-seeing plane went down near the village of Sheparivtsi in the Prykarpattia region.
- The three passengers were fellow students at Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, The Yeshiva World reported.
THE ICE CREAM CRISIS, DAY 11
The Jewish founders of Ben & Jerry’s defended the ice cream company’s boycott of Israel’s West Bank settlements in an op-ed in the The New York Times.
- Bennett Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who sold the company decades ago and maintain no control over its operations, wrote Wednesday that they support Israel but oppose its policy of building settlements in the West Bank.
- They argued that the decision was consistent for a company espousing progressive values.
- Quotable: “That we support the company’s decision is not a contradiction nor is it anti-Semitic,” they wrote. “In fact, we believe this act can and should be seen as advancing the concepts of justice and human rights, core tenets of Judaism. As Jewish supporters of the State of Israel, we fundamentally reject the notion that it is anti-Semitic to question the policies of the State of Israel.”
U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens) released a statement Wednesday saying the company’s decision made her “sad and disappointed” and that “it is important that New York, among other states, looks into whether the boycott violates anti-BDS laws.”
Also on Wednesday, 90 of the 120 members of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, signed a letter calling the company’s action a “decision to boycott towns and cities in Israel,” condemning it as “shameful” and “immoral.”
BEYOND THE BOROUGHS
State police arrested three men for an attack on a Jewish man Saturday in the upstate village of Fleischmanns.
- The suspects accosted the victim on Shabbat morning, stealing his fur shtreimel hat and shouting antisemitic slurs as they drove off in a pickup truck, The Oneonta Daily Star reported.
- The three were charged with third-degree grand larceny as a hate crime.
FOOD COURT
Smoked Amberjack Salad on a Chicago-Style Everything Bagel, from Edith’s in Brooklyn. (Instagram)
Grub Street reports on local restaurants and purveyors that are trying to broaden the definition of Jewish food beyond “bagels or bialys or pastrami.”
- Examples include Gefilteria, Balaboosta, Dacha 46 and Edith’s, which opened in March in Williamsburg.
- Quotable: “If there is such a thing as Jewish cuisine, it has to take into account the entire Jewish experience, yet, as a people, we’ve been scattered all over the globe. However, I’ve noticed lately that more people are trying to explore that ancestry in meaningful ways,” writes Jason Diamond.
PEOPLE & PLACES
The CEO of UJA- Federation of New York, Eric Goldstein, left, welcomes Itzik Shmuli as the new director-general of its Israel office. (Courtesy of UJA Federation)
UJA-Federation of New York named Itzik Shmuli, Israel’s former Minister of Labor, Welfare and Social Services, as the new director-general of its Israel office.
- Shmuli was a well-known student activist in Israel before being elected to the Knesset fom the Labor Party. Beginning Aug. 1, he’ll direct the umbrella philanthropy’s extensive projects in Israel, which include caring for the vulnerable, promoting shared society, Jewish engagement and helping to bridge the divide between world Jewry and Israel.
- Quotable: “My decision to join UJA is rooted in a desire to help strengthen the critical connection between Israel and American Jewry,” he said in a statement. “The Federation is leading among the largest philanthropic social investments in Israel, giving a chance to so many Israelis who are still being left behind — and I see this new role as a direct continuation of my activities in the Knesset and government.”
WHAT’S ON TODAY
What was it like to grow up on the Lower East Side in the early 1900s? Find out on a Tenement Museum walking tour designed for children five and up and their families. $10/child; $15/adult. Visit here for details. 11:00 am.
Join SVIVAH for an intimate conversation with Shira Lankin Sheps, founder of The Layers Project, and the women of Layers: Michal Kaye, Shara Shetrit and Rebecca Spiewak. Layers is an online media source for insights into the lives of Jewish women.RSVP here for for Zoom link. 12:30 pm.
- Read how Layers “encourages Jewish women — particularly Orthodox women — to share their stories, show their faces and talk about the areas of life that are seldom spoken about,” from our colleagues at Kveller.
Join the Museum of Jewish Heritage for a conversation with Deborah Riley Draper, author of “Olympic Pride, American Prejudice,” a new book about the 18 African-American athletes who defied Jim Crow and Adolf Hitler to win hearts and medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Register here. 7:00 pm.
Gabrielle Glaser discusses her book “American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption,” examining the dark truth about postwar adoption in the U.S. and the New York Jewish adoption agency at the center of it. Sign up for this installment of the Jewish Women’s Archive’s (Post)Quarantine Book Talks series here. 8:00 pm.
Join UJA-Federation of New York and The Jewish Week for a conversation with Robert Abrams, the former attorney general of New York and author of “The Luckiest Guy in the World.” He and moderator Sandee Brawarsky will discuss his journey in politics, his career and his life of public service. Aug. 4, 7:00 pm. Register here.
Photo, top: Firefighters respond at the scene of a plane crash at a house in Sheparivtsi, Ukraine on July 28, 2021. (Screenshot/YouTube)
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